Beverly Lewis. The Atonement. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2016. See here to buy the book.
Lucy
Flaud, an Amish woman in her twenties, is doing a lot of community
service work to atone for something she did in the past. She is trying
to appease God and her father as well as forget her grief. Her father
Christian, meanwhile, has been attending a grief counseling group at a
nearby church, and he thinks that the group could help Lucy. At the
group, Christian meets a non-Amish man named Dale. Dale later meets
Lucy and offers her spiritual advice, while also assisting Lucy as she
attempts to help a struggling single mother get on her feet. Christian
wonders what Dale's intentions are towards Lucy, and Christian is
perplexed that Lucy has been attracted to men from outside of the
community rather than Amish men. There is also Tobe, an Amish man who
has not yet settled down. People think this is because Tobe is too
picky. Actually, it is because Tobe is carrying a torch for Lucy. But
Tobe and his family are about to move.
It
was when I got to the final third of the book that it came alive to me.
In the first third, I was trying to figure out what was going on and
getting used to the characters and the setting. Reading the second
third was a similar experience to reading the first third, but there
were some good parts, particularly concerning the single woman trying to
get on her feet. In one scene, after Lucy and Dale help the woman,
Lucy asks what God thinks about that. Dale responds that God was not
just observing their act, but was actually behind it! In the final
third of the book, mysteries explicitly get resolved: What is Lucy
trying to atone for? Why has Christian been attending a grief support
group? Lucy receives a fresh picture of God's love, as she hears a
story from an elderly couple about a Christian man's unconditional
love. Lucy also reconciles with her father and learns about his own
feet of clay.
The final third of the book
was probably the clearest, whereas the first two thirds struck me as
rather scattered. There were distractions in the book, as we experience
the lives of other characters. Perhaps Beverly Lewis should have done a
better job focusing, and yet the scattered nature of the book did offer
some realism: lots of things go on in life. Plus, there was an
endearing tangential scene between Lucy and one of her sisters, Lettie,
as Lettie was upset that Lucy did not pay much attention to her. That
aspect of the book was rather underdeveloped, yet it was an endearing
scene.
My reaction to the story about the
Christian man's unconditional love towards the lady who became his wife
was mixed. The man was like a savior figure, whereas she was someone
who was losing her way. I saw that as rather one-sided. Lewis seemed
to attempt to compensate for this imbalance, somewhat, by presenting the
husband as saying that he benefited from the relationship, too, since
he was lonely. Still, the story perhaps could have been better had it
not had as much of a damsel-in-distress theme. Maybe the woman could
have contributed to the story and offered her own wisdom to Lucy.
A
question in my mind as I read this book is how much of the religion in
the book reflects Amish religion, and how much reflects evangelical
Christianity. Is God's unconditional love something that the Amish
stress, or is that more of an evangelical concept? I suspect the
latter, but I am open to correction. The book did depict other aspects
of Amish religion: Lucy confessing her sins to the bishop and the bishop
evaluating the authenticity of her repentance; and an aversion to Amish
people marrying people from non-Amish churches.
In
my opinion, the book could have done more in addressing why people
should do good works. Lucy was running herself ragged doing good works
to atone for some sin and to appease a God she saw as harsh, and that
was obviously wrong. But did she continue to do good works after her
spiritual healing, and, if so, why? The book did not really explore
that. It did address the topic of having a proper motivation for good
works, on some level: Lucy sees the good that she is accomplishing for
others, and Dale's insight teaches her to see her service as working
with God rather than trying to appease God. Still, the book's failure
to present her as doing good works after her spiritual healing does make
the book incomplete.
I give this book
3.5 stars. I was going through the motions of reading it until the
final third of the book. Yet, the book had good scenes and made good
points.
I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.